News & Events

The text of the Stephen Ellis Memorial Lecture, delivered by Jonathan Jansen, Vice-Chancellor and Rector of the University of the Free State, on 9 October at the Netherlands Embassy in Pretoria, is now online. The lecture, entitled ´A quiet contemplation on the new anger: The state of transformation in South African universities´, was held in tribute to the recently deceased Vrije Universiteit Desmond Tutu Professor and senior researcher at the African Studies Centre, Stephen Ellis (1953 - 2015).

To coincide with the NVAS Africa Day – 'Africa and Technology' – on 17 October in Delft, the ASC Library has compiled a new web dossier, containing a selection of recent titles on Renewable Energy in Africa from the library's online catalogue, published since 2013. The dossier has sections on Renewable Energy Resources, Planning & Policies, and Local Impact stories, illustrating how applied renewable energy technology can change lives, as in the case of improved fuel efficient cook stoves and photovoltaics. Read the web dossier!

This new ASC Infosheet focuses on the relations between South Korea and Africa. South Korea’s primary goal in establishing diplomatic relations in the 1980s was its own political recognition. After it was admitted to the United Nations and recognized as a state, the country’s interest in Africa waned. In the mid-2000s South Korea began to take diplomatic relations with Africa seriously again, establishing trade relations, as well as official development assistance.

The Africa Yearbook 2014 covers major domestic political developments, foreign policy and socio-economic trends in sub-Saharan Africa, all related to developments in 2014. It contains articles on all sub-Saharan states, each of the four sub-regions, an article on continental developments and one on African-European relations. The book is a joint effort of the Africa Institute of South Africa, The Nordic Africa Institute, the German Institute of Global and Area Studies and the ASC Leiden. For this edition, Klaas van Walraven, co-editor of the first ten volumes, wrote the chapter on Niger.

Ethiopia hosts migrants and produces migrants; it hosts diasporas and produces diasporas. It is precisely at that interface between Ethiopia and its diasporas, that this special issue of African Diaspora is situated, Giulia Bonacci writes in her introduction. ASC researcher Rijk van Dijk is editor-in-chief of African Diaspora, which is published by Brill. The journal seeks to understand how African cultures and societies shape and are shaped by historical and current diasporic and transnational movements.

The Swedish author Henning Mankell, who died on Monday 5 October 2015, loved Africa. He lived in both Africa and Sweden since 1987, and travelled in Africa since the early seventies. After publishing his first novel in 1973, his maiden trip to an African country took him to Guinea-Bissau, where he immediately felt at ease. “I don't know why, but when I stepped out of the plane in Africa I had the odd feeling of coming home”, Mankell once remarked.

Miriam Ocadiz (23) from Mexico and Rob Hogenboom (24) from the Netherlands are two of our new Research MA students. Miriam is particularly interested in South-South relations, Rob is fascinated by music from North-India and the Arabic world, and how they influence African music. If you want to know more about their background, education so far and (career) expectations for the future, read these short interviews to get to know them better! 

The novel The Fishermen, by Nigerian writer Chigozie Obioma, was on the shortlist for the Man Booker Prize 2015. The Fishermen is Obioma’s first novel and, at the age of 28, he was the youngest of this year’s nominees. Chigozie Obioma was born in Nigeria and, after studying in Cyprus and staying in Turkey, now lives in the United States, where he is professor of Literature and Creative Writing at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. The Fishermen is the subject of our latest Acquisition Highlight!

The ASC has been awarded a one-year research project on the attitudes, perceptions and usage of Mobile Money in four African countries: DR Congo, Zambia, Cameroon and Senegal. The project is financed by the International Finance Corporation, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. It is a mix between academic research and consultancy and brings together anthropologists, young (African) research talent and key players in the industry. Project leader: Mirjam de Bruijn.

Stephen Ellis' wife Gerrie ter Haar, Honorary Fellow of the ASC Community, would like to thank all of you for your expressions of sympathy following Stephen’s death. She is also grateful for the practical support provided to her to finalise some of Stephen’s work. This includes his book on the history of organized crime in Nigeria that is scheduled for publication in Spring next year, in the UK as well as in the US. Two academic articles that Stephen finished also shortly before his death will be published in the next couple of months. Read the thank-you card here.